1. A Posteriori Arguments for God’s Existence Aquinas’ Five Ways
Chapter 28
A Posteriori Arguments for God’s Existence
Aquinas’ Five Ways

2. Nature: A Cosmos, not a Chaos
The Greeks were the first Western thinkers to label nature a cosmos
The debate over whether the world order has a rational cause or is due merely to:
Chance combination of eternal bits of matter is older than the debate over God’s existence
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3. Nature: A Cosmos, not a Chaos
In neither the Jewish nor the Christian Bibles is there any argument for:
God’s existence
Christian writers found the most useful philosophical framework within the:
Philosophy of Plato
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4. The Disputed Question The form adopted by Aquinas in his:
Presentation of the arguments for God’s existence
An approach to religious questions of:
The form presented here by Aquinas’ arguments is often called natural theology
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5. St. Thomas Aquinas: The Five Ways
Whether God Exists?
We proceed thus to the Third Article:
Objection 1
Objection 2
Reply Objection 1
Reply Objection 2
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6. The Argument From Change
The ancient Greeks were fascinated by change:
For it seemed to them an intricate puzzle
Change is the movement from a thing’s potentiality to its actuality
We experience things being moved from potentiality to actuality
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7. The Argument from Efficient Causality
Aquinas used terms for causality that:
Have pretty much dropped out of our philosophical vocabulary
Used the term cause to refer to:
Explanatory principles other than efficient causes
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8. The Argument from Possibility and Necessity
A contingent being is a dependent being
The opposite of a contingent being is a necessary being
If the universe is infinitely old, all possibilities would have been realized
By this point it is clear what God’s characteristics are
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9. The Argument from Gradations of Being
There must be a standard of being by which all things are
In Thomistic thought:
Anything that is must possess certain qualities common to all other beings
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10. The Argument from Design
The last of Aquinas’ arguments is:
Based on the observance of order and apparent purpose in the world
The design argument reached its height of popularity in the eighteenth century
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